


(SHERLOCK AND READER) There's A Spider In The Loo

by LVE32



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Baker Street, 221B Ficlet, 221b, Adorable, Awkward Crush, Comforting Sherlock Holmes, Crushes, Cute, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Feel-good, First Crush, Flatmate Sherlock Holmes, Fluff, Friendship, Funny, Light-Hearted, Mentioned Mrs Hudson, Mutual Pining, Phobias, Pining, Pining Sherlock Holmes, Pre-Relationship, Reader-Insert, Secret Crush, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Spiders, Sweet, Sweet Sherlock, Teasing, Touch-Starved, Touching, Vulnerability, Vulnerable Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24913120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LVE32/pseuds/LVE32
Summary: Sherlock is scared of spiders. Y/N finds this hilarious.(Pre relationship, but there's a few moments when they realise 'huh, I think I'm kinda in love')
Kudos: 22





	(SHERLOCK AND READER) There's A Spider In The Loo

__________

**As well as love, the desire to impress also conquers all fear.**

__________

The kitchen---of almost any home---is usually where things happen. It's the core, a hub, the centre, feeding the dwelling with sustenance from its fridge, its sink, its cupboards like a heart feeds a body with blood. 

This is true of 221B, as any one of its slightly disgruntled neighbours---after many years of various bangs, thumps, thuds (and on one occasion: a fizzing noise)---can attest to. 

One man, Sherlock Holmes, is responsible for all of these (apart from the times when he has company; usually an angry thug with a thirst for revenge who tries to murder him with one of his own vegetable knives). He's always doing something, staving off boredom with chemical experiments, slightly illegal target practice, and or letting thugs who want to behead him into his house just to pass the time. 

It is because of this, the abundance of life, that Y/N had taken to reading at the kitchen table.

She used to read in her bedroom upstairs, but that felt too far away, so she moved to the living room. That still wasn't close enough, so now, whenever she feels the inkling to absorb herself in a fictional realm, she does so at the dining table.

The dining table is not comfortable, as anyone that has ever sat at one for even a minute will be able to tell you. The chairs are made of hard, stubborn wood that---for some unknown reason---always seems to curve at just the wrong place; right where your spine begins arching, the chair's rigid back forces it in the opposite direction. We no longer live in the middle ages; our furniture does not need to be made from misshapen sticks, and yet, that way it remains.

As anyone that has also read a _book_ will be able to tell you, reading tends to be done whilst your limbs conduct some strange, slow form of yoga. You open the book whilst sitting with both feet planted firmly on the floor, your back straight, your arms neatly spreading the novel over your lap. Ten minutes later, you're somehow upside down, legs twisted like a pretzel, with one arm supporting your head by its temple; your body's attempt at getting comfortable. Why does reading come with an array of unnecessarily complicated sitting positions? More things we do not know.

Y/N has been reading for quite a bit more than ten minutes, so her reading position closely resembles that of a frog who's been perched on a too-small lilypad for much longer than it would have liked. She had the good sense to pre-prepare her selected dining room chair with pillows, which managed to make the unyielding flat surfaces marginally more tolerable, but that didn't change the fact that it _was_ a dining room chair.

Sherlock would look up every now and again, take a brief hiatus from staring at colourful blobs through his microscope, jotting down numbers or scrawling words, to observe his flatmate with what could only be described as amusement. It was not just Y/N's more than imaginative arrangement of her own framework that caused a smile to tug at the corners of his lips, but the fact that she'd rather sit here on these horrible chairs, with _him_ , than, well, literally anywhere else.

Even if that did mean losing all sensation from her thighs downwards.

Sherlock didn't even consider himself to be doing anything worth Y/N's time. If he'd been conversing with a client, piecing together clues, or even deciphering a code, maybe then he'd understand Y/N's desire to be close to him. After all, he too has a fear of missing out on anything remotely noteworthy, and action does tend to follow Sherlock Holmes around like a stray cat begging for food. By his side is a good place to be if you're looking for adventure.

But, most of the time when Y/N takes a seat a few chairs down from him; close enough to be a part of whatever he was doing, but not too close to crowd his workspace, she doesn't seem to do so in the hope for 'adventure'. Or even mild stimulation. She just likes to be close to him, which, in a way he doesn't quite yet understand, makes him very pleased.

So he's smiling.

But yes, of course she does also look slightly ridiculous, which was very funny.

She doesn't catch him regarding her, pale silver-like eyes melting with fondness, but she can feel his glances on the side of her face.

At present, Sherlock is lifting fingerprints from various things he'd 'borrowed' from a suspect's car. He'd insisted at the time to Y/N that he was in fact 'borrowing' them, not 'stealing' because he intended to give the items back one day. He pointed out that people, when they steal, don't do that. Y/N counteracted with the fact that, when he lacked permission, there really is no distinction, it really didn't matter if he returned them or not, he's still taking them in the first place which is, in fact, stealing. They'd then debated basic moral principles as Sherlock proceeded to break into the decrepit old Fiat.

The things he 'borrowed' are of no real value to anyone, and are actually in closer resemblance to litter than loot. They're not loot, really. They're barely even a haul. The only way this collection of mismatched items could be called a 'haul' is if it was being described as 'a large group of things', which it certainly was. There was a tub of Vaseline lip balm, a crisp packet, a bottle of Lipton's iced tea, an empty, unmarked glass bottle, a phone charger, a house key, and an almost full-drained lighter. These, and a fair amount of white dust, acetate cards, and tape are spread evenly on the table.

Sherlock quintessentially dedicating his downtime to mediocre cases to pass the hours.

Y/N quintessentially reading and wondering what people called pins-and-needles before pins and needles were invented.

Most evenings at 221B are spent this way, but this one was different, and what separated it from the other 'most evenings' was Sherlock going to the loo.

Or, rather, Sherlock going to the loo then running straight back out again.

Okay, he didn't run, but when Y/N tells the story later she will say he did.

What Sherlock had really done was stand, walk to the little bathroom tucked next to his bedroom, and close the door. Normal. So normal, the movement had barely registered in Y/N's consciousness. But then, not a millisecond after the lock had clicked, it slid back, the door was opened again and Sherlock hastily returned to his seat where he picked up whatever not-stolen object was closest to him and pretended to be doing something with it.

This _had_ caught Y/N's attention and she raised her head from her book to furrow her brows at him. "I thought you needed the bathroom?"

Sherlock gave his best attempt at appearing confused. "No, I'm fine."

Y/N could tell it was an 'attempt' because his features had moved like they were being controlled, rather badly, by strings. Something had jarred him. "You ran into the loo and then straight back out again. What's wrong? Did you see a spider?" She'd been joking but something flashed behind his eyes and she was a little taken aback. By the fact that she'd guessed correctly on the first try more than his previously unheard of fear, admittedly. She should learn not to doubt herself. "Wait, really?"

"It's fine," Sherlock said less than convincingly, busying himself with dusting the lid of the Vaseline tub. A small, white plume filled the air around his now more white than usual hands and began to settle on, well, everything. "I'll just wait until it's gone."

Y/N had to concentrate very hard not to grin. There are few things genuinely seen as scary to Sherlock Holmes, and even fewer things that are seen as scary _and_ can be used as sticks to poke fun at him. You can not hide 'an office-based career' in a man's bed, or chase him around a room with 'boredom'. But you can do both of these things with an arachnid, so all Y/N had to do now was discover if the effects would be worth it. "Or you could just remove it?"

Sherlock shook his head, giving a one-syllable laugh. Nonchalance is the hardest emotion to fake. "No, I'll just wait."

Placing her book down after marking her place, Y/N leaned forward a little in her disastrously uncomfortable dining chair. "You don't have to touch it. Just get some paper and a cup and let it crawl---"

Are you aware of the saying 'someone walked over my grave'? It usually follows a violent, unintentional shiver. This is what Sherlock did, couldn't help doing, the brush in his hand sending up another flurry of dust with the movement. "Please stop."

"You're really _that_ scared of spiders?" Y/N was grinning now because that's what you do when you discover your friend has a crippling phobia. You use it as a source of amusement, you exploit it, and you never let them forget it.

Sherlock must know this too because he pulled his nonchalant act even tighter around himself in a desperate attempt at self-defence. "I'm not scared, I'm just..." He mentally searched for the right word. It _had_ to be the right word because one slip of the tongue could mean torment for the foreseeable future. "...weary. It's a perfectly natural instinct designed for our own protection because spiders are venomous---"

"In Australia, yeah." Y/N gave a laugh that Sherlock didn't like the sound of at all.

Why had he teased her about...well everything he'd ever teased her about? He'd only been playing. But, he realised now with a sick feeling, the way she sees it, she's only playing too. He's very rarely on the receiving end of teasing, and even though he's still seconds away from being so, Sherlock decided that he doesn't like it one bit.

"This is England, Sherlock. The most dangerous spider we have here are those ones that crawl into your mouth at night---"

"THEY WHAT?" Oops.

To say that had startled Y/N was an understatement. She just sort of gaped at Sherlock who was now wide-eyed and panicked, caught on her every word like a child who'd just been told of ghosts for the first time. His cheekbones had no colour, and he wasn't moving. Y/N wondered, for a horrible second, if she'd broken him so quickly offered him this nugget of information:

"I was joking! That's a myth."

Sherlock visibly relaxed, momentarily forgetting the onslaught of long-overdue joshing that is rapidly storming in his direction.

Meanwhile, Y/N's brain was recovering from the surprise triggered by her friend's obvious, uncharacteristic display of terror, and beginning to process what this obvious, uncharacteristic display of terror actually means.

In 1966, an animated television short was released; the first animated version of Dr Seuss' ' _How The Grinch Stole Christmas'._ In one particular scene, said Grinch's mouth morphs into a curling, wicked, evil smile so wide it lightly touches the tips of his ears. This is the kind of smile Y/N is now smiling. "Wow, you really are scared of spiders, aren't you? Like, _really_ scared."

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. "Shut up."

"Are you embarrassed or do you still really need the bathroom?"

A pregnant pause as Sherlock hopefully waited for something to catch fire and give him an excuse to never finish this conversation. "...Both."

Y/N's evil grin faltered. He'd given in so easily, admitted to two embarrassing things rather than just one. He hadn't even tried to stubbornly deny all of them as she had anticipated. She half expected him to storm to his room and lock himself in---pretending to be angry with her when actually he just wanted to be safe from any ammunition he'd accidentally thrown her way.

But he hadn't. He'd owned up. Hesitantly, yes, shamefully, yes, but he'd admitted defeat all the same. He now looked oddly small, sort of hanging his head, flecks of fingerprint powder clinging to his curls, making him appear to have wisps of grey; like early onset of salt and pepper hair.

"Do you want me to get the spider out?" Y/N's mouth had offered gently before she even knew why.

Sherlock had seen enough of the world to treat this kind gesture with caution. Before answering, he turned it over in his mind, analysing it like it was a bomb to be defused. Was this a new tactic? A new approach to see if she could needle out a little more mocking? Or was the offer sincere? 

Her features had softened, her sharp smirk dulled to a subtle smile. 

"...Yes please."

🕷🕷🕷

Sherlock timidly followed Y/N to the loo after she had retrieved a glass from the cupboard and a piece of paper from the table. It had writing on it, Sherlock's looping, slightly-sideways-slanting hand, but she doubted that was important. If it was, he didn't protest. It seemed to be the least of his worries as she made her way into the bathroom.

"Where was it?" Y/N is a little bit scared of spiders---she'd be willing to bet that everyone is, in all honesty---but the fact that Sherlock is _more_ scared of them seemed to have somehow pitched her into another sphere of confidence.

Said man was currently occupying one side of the door frame, sort of clinging to the jamp with one hand like the fearless hero he is. "It _was_ in the shower." He glanced around, the fact that it had moved setting his plentiful, already-frayed nerves on edge. "...But now it's not."

Sarcastically: "Yes, thank you, detective, I can see that."

"Do you think it escaped?"

Y/N cackled a little laugh. "Did you try to contain it by shutting the door?"

Mr Holmes is a man of immense mental aptitude, courage, and resilience. That is why the image of him using a shower door as a barrier between a small, harmless, slightly fluffy creature and himself is, frankly, hilarious.

If Y/N had turned around now she would have noticed his cheeks redden. "No, I _noticed_ the shower door was open, so I shut it. The fact that a shower could also double as a spider containment unit is merely happenstance."

Deadpan: "You're pathetic."

Sherlock glared at her. "Just get it out. While you look for it, I'm going to use Mrs Hudson's loo."

If she hadn't seen his quite obvious discomfort, Y/N would have assumed that was an excuse to run for the hills.

🕷🕷🕷

When Sherlock returned several minutes later, Y/N still had nothing to show for her efforts. He found her cautiously lifting shampoo bottles one by one and inspecting them. She'd been bracing herself for the inevitable shock of spinning Sherlock's Nivea Men's body wash around to find an eight-legged critter staring back at her with it's dark, multitudinous eyes, and the tension was getting to her. She really didn't want to show Sherlock that she was ever so slightly dreading that moment, so took a deep breath and placed the last of the bottles back on the lip of the bath.

"Was it a big spider?" She asked, trying to sound interested more than anything else.

"Massive," was the reply, but Y/N decided that Sherlock, in his current state, probably wasn't a reliable source. He'd been in and out of there so fast he probably couldn't even be sure it _was_ a spider; it probably just appeared as a black blur.

"How big is 'massive'?"

Sherlock thought for a second. He still wasn't daring to venture beyond the doorway, even keeping his sock-covered feet well away from the part of the floor where wood ended and linoleum began; as if the entire bathroom was infected with a deadly disease. "About eight centimetres. All the way across, I mean, like if its legs were all flat."

Y/N put her hands on her hips and said conclusively: "Well it probably can't have gotten into any of the cupboards, then. She's probably female; female spiders are typically larger."

"I don't care about its sex," Sherlock laughed, but it sounded brittle. "I just want it out. Have you checked behind the---"

"I've checked everywhere, calm down, she can't have gone far." A look of clarity lit Y/N's eyes.

"What? What is it?"

"Almost everywhere," she amended. "I think I know where she is. Close the door."

It was almost touching how the idea of shutting Y/N in a room with a spider seemed to make Sherlock very alarmed.

"Why?"

Y/N gently teased his fingers from the door jamb, and he let her, hands cold and clammy and, now, surprisingly pliant. Like ice cream. The touch made Sherlock's shoulders settle an inch or two into their usual position but he was still hesitant to move back enough for Y/N to imprison herself inside the little room.

"I need to shut the door to get to the dressing gown you keep on the back of it." She hadn't wanted to tell him this because---

"If it's in there I'm never wearing that ever again." His palms rose to a surrender position and he reversed until his back bumped into the wall and Y/N rolled her eyes.

With him out of the way, she used her foot to shut the door, and was grateful for the privacy so she could take a moment to steady herself. It was a strange and alien experience, feeling a nagging sense of dread whilst in a bathroom. And their bathroom is rather nice, seeing as they both have rather an affinity for bathing. The only time anyone ever feels any amount of anxiety whilst in a room where it's commonplace to be nude is when taking a pregnancy test, Y/N thought as she readied herself with cup in hand and piece of paper in other.

Sherlock has many dressing gowns. Well, more than the average person. There's three that Y/N knows of, and they are one of the few versatile items Sherlock owns. They're versatile as in he wears them when he feels like it, not because it's two o'clock on a Tuesday.

That's not hyperbole.

He has a sock index.

Anyway, if the spider is currently residing within one of the few items Sherlock feels truly at peace within---no itchy labels, no rigid timetables, no too-tight buttons---that would truly be beautifully ironic. Cats are known for choosing the lap of the most feline-averse person in a room to plonk their fluffy behinds down upon. It seems that, in their own way, spiders do the same sort of thing. Y/N almost giggled when she gave one blue silk sleeve a little shake and a scurrying whirl of legs made a hasty exit.

Eight centimetres was about right, Y/N pondered as the legs came to an abrupt halt, having carried the spider all the way to the opposite wall. Y/N wondered if spiders got tired, because it didn't protest when she gently placed the cup over the creature, careful not to catch any of its many limbs. She then slid the sheet of paper neatly under the cup, letting the spider climb onto it in its own time, before taking the whole thing, triumphantly, away from the wall.

Even though you know it won't, there's always that slight itch of fear at the back of the brain that the paper will, somehow, give out and the spider will scuttle up your arm. Y/N couldn't even hear this fear, at present, though, because she was too distracted by the moment she'd been waiting for.

Y/N isn't malicious. Not really. But she did find a certain amount of pleasure in the absolute horror that drained Sherlock's face of blood as she pushed the door open and his eyes fell on the cup now barely a foot from his rapidly rising and falling chest.

"Found her," Y/N said casually, smiling because she'd sounded so _convincingly_ casual it made her proud.

Sherlock had backed away from her, the material of his shirt sliding against the wall with a whispering sound of silky friction. His pupils followed the spider (now chilling compliantly on one side of the upturned glass) as if it was the tip of a knife, his every muscle tensed and ready to throw himself out of harm's way. The doorknob of his bedroom prodded him in the back and he realised he was cornered. Y/N watched his adam's apple bob up and then down his long pale throat as he swallowed around the lump of anxiety rapidly forming there.

"Great, well done," he said, the most amusing hint of nervousness strangling his baritone into a slightly higher pitch. He seemed both _glad_ that the spider had been captured, and _dismayed_ that it had been Y/N to do so. He knew what she was probably going to do with it. Because what are friends for if not to scare each other shitless?

"Yep," Y/N popped the 'p', her ease only making Sherlock reach one hand behind him to feel around for the brass of the door handle. Y/N had stepped closer to him, slowly, so slowly Sherlock hadn't even noticed her move. He just knew that a second ago the spider hadn't been so near to him that he could count each individual beady eye. But now it was, and that was Not Good. "Do you wanna say goodbye to it?"

Finally, his desperate fingers found the cool brass they'd been seeking and he didn't hesitate to grab it with the rest of his hand.

Y/N had caught onto what he was doing now, that evil smirk teasing the corner of her lips in a way that made Sherlock's abdomen knot with white terror, and a sensation he didn't recognise. Maybe if he wasn't scared out of his wits he would have dug deeper into what that sensation was, or, more importantly, what it meant that his female flatmate could elicit such a reaction.

But he _is_ scared out of his wits, so instead of contemplating this strange awakening of---whatever that feeling had been, he desperately twisted the doorknob and pushed himself back against the wood of the door as hard as he could.

Obviously, as open things with hinges seem to do when a six-foot human being throws all of their weight against them, the door swung free of the jamb and Sherlock swung with it, sort of falling into his bedroom backwards as if sucked inside by a vacuum.

Righting himself, too distracted by Y/N and the thing she was still holding to feel at all shamed by his less than graceful retreat, Sherlock brushed imaginary dust from his pristine shirt. He could feel the material sticking slightly to his clammy palms as they passed over it, and he tried to stand as straight as he possibly could manage, the added distance between himself and the spider restoring a millimetre of his self-control.

He sounded more level as he instructed with an impressive amount of confidence: "Put it out the living room window." He'd made one mistake, though. He'd _instructed_ , and that betrayed his unease.

He never usually issues a direct order to Y/N.

He's not sure why.

"There's a window in here," Y/N mused aloud, leaning a little through the door frame to get a look at what she was referring to, feigning surprise as if she'd only just noticed its existence. "Why walk to the living room?" She took a few strides calmly into the room, for every one of hers Sherlock made two of his own in the opposite direction.

"The ones in the living room open further." That confidence he'd faked a second ago had rapidly trickled away, along with the last of the blood from his face. With his high cheekbones, alabaster complexion, deep-set eyes and angular jawline, he almost looked like a roman statue. The effect was ruined by the flurrying pulse obviously beating in his chest. He's very much alive, and ready to bolt if need be.

Y/N had stopped to observe him properly, her calculating eyes analyzing him with scrutiny and he didn't like it.

For some reason he didn't want her to see him as weak.

"You'll always be afraid if you don't face your fear, Sherlock. Wanna hold her?"

He shook his head, wanting to say 'no' but all he could manage was a strangled sound because she'd got closer, so close he'd had to start moving around the bed. He was being worked into a corner again.

All of a sudden, Y/N dove forwards, taking one giant step forwards; so it begins. The relentless teasing. Luckily, Sherlock had been mentally preparing for this and had mapped an escape route, which he took now with admirable agility and speed. He side-stepped lithely onto the mattress of his bed, ran/hobbled over it as it dipped below his weight, leapt off the other side and disappeared into the hallway.

Y/N was following him, laughing, obviously, her shorter legs and desire not to cause too much distress to her new spider friend slowing her down some, not that it mattered. Sherlock had no place to run. He had planned to make a break from the apartment itself, maybe hide out at Mrs Hudson's, but when he reached the door it was locked and by the time he'd turned around to rake the surrounding area for a set of keys, Y/N was already so close she started out a yelp from the detective's throat.

He took up a run again, circling the living room, looping around the dining table, then back to the door again several times, leading them both in a giant, dizzying figure eight. Y/N was saying things like 'she won't hurt you' and 'get back here', and the whole experience was almost fun, Sherlock would later realise. Maybe if she was threatening to just tickle him, or something, when she eventually caught him, he would have seen that at the time.

Sherlock tired before Y/N, his anxiety causing his energy supply to drain twice as fast, and came to a reluctant, panting halt on his seventh lap of the kitchen. He had the forethought to do so whilst Y/N was on the opposite side of the dining table; unable to pester him unless she was secretly very good at jumping, flying, or throwing arachnids.

"Are you finished?" He asked, his tone almost irritated as he glared across the barrier between them, meeting Y/N's evil grin with his own hardened stare.

"Depends," Y/N goaded back. She was slightly out of breath too, mostly from being unable to take in a proper dose of oxygen between giggles. "Are you ready to face your fear and hold her?"

Sherlock's jaw feathered and he crossed his arms over his chest. Not confrontationally. Protectively, like a shield. "And why should I do that?"

Y/N shrugged, finding it amusing how Sherlock's pupils followed the spider in the glass up and then down as she did so. He's watching it as if he thinks she's going to part the lip of the cup from the paper and yeet the contents in his face. "I won't always be around to get them out of the bathroom for you."

Something else flashed over his face and he met her eyes now, for the first time in a while. "You're moving out?"

"What? No."

He released a sigh but it was shaky, his relief mixed with his previous tension that wasn't going to leave unless the spider did.

"I just meant, like, what if I'm at work or something? Are you just going to put off going to the loo or showering or something just because a spider is in the way? What if there's a spider on the biscuit tin? How will you survive?"

Sherlock didn't know whether to puff his chest out because what he was about to say next proved her point mute, or cower shamefully and run an embarrassed hand through his hair because what he was about to say was pathetic. He settled for doing neither and bit his bottom lip before admitting: "Mrs Hudson would get them out for me."

This had clearly been the wrong thing to say because Y/N threw back her head in a delighted cackle. Sherlock's eyes widened in horror at her lack of attention to what she was holding. He almost winced as he waited for the inevitable gap to appear between the cup and paper, the spider to seize its chance and make a run for it while her captor was busy laughing.

"You ask a little old lady to come and get spiders out for you?"

"Shut up."

"How am I only learning about this now?" She'd stopped laughing, at least, her giggles ebbing away but leaving a sparkling light in her eyes that was more than unsettling.

Sherlock had been proud of the arrangement (before Y/N had stripped it of its dignity and left it as the pitiful husk of a thing it was) and that's the only reason he had enough gall to say:

"You know how Mrs Hudson sometimes cleans up here? Or inspects it to make sure I haven't blown it up or something? When she'd do that, if she saw a spider she'd just get rid of it for me. I never usually needed to ask her to get them out because she'd just...do it."

Y/N gave him a long look and it made Sherlock feel like what he'd just said had not actually helped his case at all. The look was almost unreadable, a poker face mixed with slight boredom and maybe a hint of disbelief. Sherlock's confession was so utterly pitiable that backing off and ending this here and now had flittered into Y/N's mind, a merciful ghost of a thought. But then she remembered all the times _he'd_ teased her, and the merciful ghost was flapped away with a metaphorical dismissive hand. "You're a child." She didn't mean it as in, _mean_ it. Meanness wasn't her intent, and she wanted him to know that, so she'd made sure to say it with an amused smile

"I'm not a child!" he snapped back, the words patted together and hurled at her like a snowball.

She ducked it easily. "You are.

"May I remind you that I deal with murderers for a living---"

"And yet little fluffy arachnids have you yelping and sprinting for the streets."

"Little fluffy ones I can take in my stride. It's big, gangly, creepy ones that I don't like. Like that one. So please can you just put it outside?" The pleading edge to his voice appealed to the part of Y/N that loved him, and she sighed.

Gently: "Wouldn't you _like_ to be able to get the spiders out on your own?"

His pale eyes rolled as he gave a harsh laugh. "Of course. No one _likes_ being scared. But I'm not touching it and if you make me I'll---"

Y/N's lip curled. "You'll what?"

Sherlock's cheeks blossomed with a pastel pink hue. He'd seen movies, and that tone of voice sounded dangerously close to flirtatious.

He didn't mind, if he was completely honest with himself.

No, what caused those tendrils of heat to tickle the back of his neck was the fact that he actually seemed to like it. 

"I'll..." What could he threaten Y/N with, really? Under no circumstances would he ever want to cause her any real kind of harm. And, as gifted as she was in the teasing department, he knew she would never actually cross the line into full-on bullying. She knows how distressing just the idea of a spider being near him is, has probably noticed his shirt slightly clinging to the beads of sweat at his back. He's in no _real_ danger of her actually putting the spider on him so there's no _real_ need to defend himself. He threw his mind back to childhood, trying to remember some of the things Mycroft would shout at him when they'd argue as children. "I'll lay on you."

That had been the first thing to come to mind. It had seemed smart at the time, witty, foreboding, memories of how uncomfortable it was to be pinned to the floor, trapped but not in enough pain to ask for help from Mother, persuading him he'd hit some kind of mark. However, now, upon further consideration (and judging by the, frankly, startled look on Y/N's face) Sherlock wanted to sink through the floor.

One of Y/N's eyebrows had been raised and now the other had inched up her forehead to join its counterpart. That smile hadn't disappeared, though, Sherlock realised with slight relief. If he'd made anything awkward by threatening to lay on his female best friend she didn't show any discomfort. "...You'll what?"

"That's what Mycroft used to say when we were children. I'll lay on you."

Y/N made a humming sound. "Don't tempt me."

 _Definitely_ flirtatious, Sherlock realised with elation and exhilaration. He didn't have time to explore this new activity further, though, because his eyes fell on the empty cup in Y/N hands.

 _Empty_.

"Wait, where's it go?" He asked, hurriedly scanning his vicinity, then his clothes. He didn't know how it would have travelled from the cup, to the table, then to his attire so fast, but he wasn't willing to take any chances. And delight he'd previously experienced from engaging in playful banter with his rather attractive flatmate had instantly evaporated and been replaced by a relentless, instinctual need to stand on a chair.

A look of momentary confusion crossed Y/N's face, then, as her mind connected the dots, she turned her gaze down to the glass in her hand. While she'd been distracted by---whatever they had been doing, her hand seemed to have wandered an inch to the left, taking with it the sheet of paper. A gap had appeared between the rim of the cup and the paper and...well---

"Clever, isn't she?" Y/N chuckled fondly, although the idea of a spider whose location was unknown unsettled her slightly. She almost mirrored Sherlock's anxious searching of his own body for the critter, but then she saw a dark shape disappear over the top of one of the cupboards. One of the high-up ones mounted to the walls that they use to hold the plates and bowls.

"She's not clever, she's trespassing in my flat," Sherlock muttered, wondering if he'd be safer to move to another part of the apartment, or if that's exactly where the spider would also go to get away from its pursuers. What he knew for sure, though, was that he craved some kind of comfort, so edged sheepishly around the dining table until he bumped into Y/N's side.

"Hello?" she questioned but got no reply.

Sherlock was still raking the room with his eyes like a rabbit who knew he'd heard a fox but didn't exactly know where it was.

"It went on top of that cupboard," she said matter of factly, wondering how she'd entrap it now. Even if she stood on a chair, her arm wouldn't be long enough---

"You should have got rid of it when I told you to!" Sherlock scolded usefully.

"Well it's a bit late for that now, isn't it? I guess it just lives here now. Should we charge it rent?"

The noise Sherlock made at that was kind of like how a deer would sound if you trapped one of its spindly, delicate legs in a car door; if you can imagine that sort of thing. "What?! No! It's not staying, please, I won't be able to sleep at night." He'd wilted, the threat of the spider becoming a permanent resident scaring him so much dignity was no longer something he cared about.

Y/N wanted to call him pathetic again, but the sharp word dissolved on her tongue. It would be too heartless, too much of a dick move to poke fun at someone when they were relying on your protection. How could she mock Sherlock when he was subconsciously pressing one side of his body up against hers in search of reassurance?

Awkwardly, because she'd never really needed to comfort Sherlock before, Y/N gave his stomach a little pat. The small of his back had been her first choice but she feared the unexpected contact would make him jump so violently he'd hit his head on the ceiling. It didn't seem to matter. A little colour had returned to his face anyway. "I was joking," she said, "We'll get it out. I don't know how, though, I can't reach that far back."

"It might have moved a bit further forwards?" Sherlock tried hopefully.

"Somehow, I doubt it, but I'll check." Y/N left the surprisingly pleasant solid warmth of Sherlock's side and dragged a chair over to the counter. The legs made a scraping sound on the wooden, uneven boards of the floor and Sherlock watched as Y/N climbed on top of it and pushed herself up on tiptoes. Even with that slight added height, her eyeline barley met the top of the cupboard. Their cupboards weren't just boxes, either, they had a sort of skirting around their top to hide all the dust that collects there, an extra few centimetres blocking not only Y/N's view of possible spiders, but any chances of capturing them as well.

Y/N got back down but left the chair where it was.

Which made Sherlock's stomach (previously tingling pleasantly where Y/N had touched him) to drop to the floor.

"You're going to have to get it," Y/N said, the words he'd been dreading.

"No! Are you crazy?"

"No, but if you want the spider out you're going to have to be the one to do it. I'm not tall enough, Mrs Hudson isn't tall enough---and even if she was there's no way I'm letting you get her to climb on a chair."

Sherlock knew she was right, and chewed his bottom lip. He had a choice to make. He could wait for the spider to vacate its new hiding spot and relocate to a more accessible position. This could take days, he knew, because once a spider makes camp it really does tend to make _camp_. Being ambush predators, they can remain still for days on end. This posed the obvious threat of the spider moving from the cupboard when no ones looking, and then popping up somewhere else. Like in Sherlock's bedroom. Or in the sink. A mental image of pouring himself some cornflakes only to have a spider spill from the box and into his breakfast bowl made a shudder spiral its way down Sherlock's spine.

Of course, the other option is doing as Y/N suggested and dealing with the problem here and now, himself. Which he _really_ didn't like the thought of.

"Can the cup fit in that space?" he asked, trying his best to sound curiously casual. As if he was just asking for fun, not because he was actually considering---

It was too late, though, Y/N already looked impressed, having assumed his interest meant there was some small chance she could actually persuade him to go through with it. "Yeah, just about. You should be able to just slide the top of the glass along the ceiling until it's over the spider, then place it down."

"I know, I'm not _entirely_ useless," Sherlock scowled, then instantly softened. "Sorry. I'm just...you know."

"Yeah, I know. I was trying to use step by step instructions to ease your nerves."

She sounded so kind and the gesture was so thoughtfully sculpted to Sherlock's zany personality that he felt the tips of his ears reddening with shame at snapping at her.

"It won't touch you," Y/N assured. "You just reach out and put a cup over it. Then the paper, move it close enough for me to take it and I'll put it outside."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her. "For real this time?"

"For real this time."

🕷🕷🕷

Sherlock had thought about it for a long time, nibbling on his bottom lip while his mind churned away. He had been thinking so hard that he didn't even notice Y/N approach him and gently reach out to stroke her thumb over his lip, freeing it from the smooth white edges of his teeth. It sent a little shiver of what could only be described as pleasure crawl across his skin and he blinked at her. His jaw, which has been tightly gritted only moments before, had slackened, his mouth falling open enough for her to get a glimpse of his pink tongue.

"You're going to end up eating half your face," Y/N chuckled at him, and he realised with a hollow feeling that she had only been preventing him from biting his lip. Nothing else. Not that he knew of anything he'd have preferred her to do.

Nothing he'd let himself think about, anyway.

He smiled with obvious effort. "Yeah, I need to stop doing that."

"You don't _have_ to get the spider out," Y/N said, "I don't mind if we leave it." She was saying it to comfort him, give him the option just in case, for some reason, he thought he had to be The Man Of The House.

He'd like to be The Man Of The House, even though, he reflected with chagrin, that metaphorical ship had long since left the metaphorical harbour.

Although nothing is set in stone. And the mental image of a spider loose in the apartment was as unsettling as it was repulsive.

Sherlock shook his head. Tentatively: "All I have to do is put the glass on it, then the paper under the glass and pull it forwards?"

"Yep." Y/N affirmed the plan with so much ease, Sherlock wished---not that he wished discomfort on her, ever---that their roles were reversed. He'd like to be the one to do the comforting, soothe _Y/N's_ frazzled nerves as he solves the problem with capable efficiency. He'd like her to look at him with admiration rather than soft pity, even if pity did mean tender touches.

 _The way she'd touched him._ Loss of dignity was almost worth getting used to just to have her do that again.

Almost.

"Okay." He approached the chair cautiously, as if scared it'll suddenly come alive and bite at his ankles as he stepped onto it. Y/N watched him, he could feel her eyes on the back of his head and that sort of...kindled a small, feeble flame of confidence. 

He wanted to impress her.

Standing on the chair, now, he's so jumpy and skittish that when Sherlock felt his hair lightly brush the ceiling, the sensation sent chills skittering over his scalp. He ignored it, though, wishing Y/N was thinking about how valiant he was being, and dared to shift his gaze over to the top of the cupboard. He could see perfectly, with his extra height, and, for the first time in his life, he wished he was shorter.

The spider is staring right at him. Well, it has eight eyes so it's probably staring right at everywhere, but in Sherlock's mind it was sizing him up, challenging him, judging the distance between them and getting ready to jump or crawl right at his face---

"Can spiders jump?" He asked, not one hundred per cent sure he wanted to know the answer.

"House spiders?" Y/N said from behind him; she'd come closer to stand by his legs, which comforted him slightly. "No. Other types can, though. She's not going to leap at your nose, if that's what you're worried about."

Sherlock was glad she couldn't see his expression properly from down there because he was blushing. "That's not what I was thinking about, I was just curious."

_Liar._

"How do you know so much about spiders anyway?" He opened his right hand, motioning for Y/N to pass him the glass and paper, which she did. The glass felt calmingly cool against his palm. That and Y/N's voice were welcome distractions from---what he saw as---the herculean task he was currently faced with.

"Mrs Hudson has a spider cupboard. I guess that's where she puts all the ones she finds in the apartment."

Another blush on Sherlock's part at the reference to his earlier confession.

"She thinks they're cute. She tells me about them when I go around for tea sometimes."

"You go for tea at Mrs Hudson's without me?"

Y/N almost giggled at the hurt in his voice. "Yes, when you're on a case and I'm worried about you she makes me tea. _That's_ the part you take offence with? Not the fact that there's a cupboard full of arachnids in the very building you live in?" Y/N watched Sherlock move the cup up to the top of the cupboard, doing as she said and sliding it along the ceiling.

"You worry about me?"

On any other occasion, Y/N would have denied it, not wanting to feed his already overweight ego. But now, as he---clearly tense all over---softly set the cup down over his small adversary, she knew he could probably use the diversion. "When you're on a case without me, yes. I worry."

"You worry because you're _not_ on the case? Or you worry because I _am_?'

Y/N couldn't see from her position on the ground, but Sherlock had lifted his other hand; the one holding the paper; up to slip it along the top of the cabinet, so she assumed he must have succeeded in trapping the spider and was now working on phase two. The paper scraped along the wood and through, no doubt, a thick layer of fluffy thunderstorm-coloured dust. That was the only sound for a few seconds while Y/N contemplated her answer. "Both. Mainly the second one. Have you got her?"

He'd pulled the cup-containing-the-spider-atop-the-paper close enough to the edge of the cupboard for the whole package to be lifted out, and beamed down at Y/N with what could only be described as genuine pride. "Yes. You really worry about me?"

Y/N's eyebrows knitted together. "Of course."

When he still didn't get down from the chair, Y/N asked:

"Do you want me to take it now?"

Sherlock seemed to turn her offer over in his head, then gave her a wobbly, half-certain smile. "No, I'll do it."

"Really?"

"Yeah." To his absolute delight, this had the effect he'd been craving; an answering proud grin, admiration, and a little clap. "Don't patronise me," he warned, but only half meaning it. Any attention from Y/N was good attention, even if it was slightly humiliating, or involved taunting him with eight-legged creatures that looked like they'd crawled straight out of Hell.

Carefully, so carefully, and whilst his heart thrummed away at what was surely an unhealthy pace, Sherlock eased the cup upwards, making sure to bring the paper with it, slowly as to be absolutely certain he was leaving no escape holes. The spider, not liking the way the world was now moving around her, scuttled fervently around the inside of the cup several times and Sherlock's mouth went very dry.

When she'd settled again, upside down on the bottom (which was now the top) of the glass, Sherlock continued to step off the chair, glad to have the soles of his feet in contact with the floor once more. The floor meant more space to run if everything suddenly went tits up, although, now that he had the spider safely contained, he didn't feel as though it would. Not as much as before, when it was in the hands of a surprisingly evil Y/N, or simply free to travel where it wished. 

He stood for a little while, just sort of...looking at the spider's belly through the glass (which magnified it slightly, a useful happenstance). It was almost interesting, in an unnerving, freakish sort of way, the thick hairs, minuscule joins, tiny organs. The curious part of Sherlock's brain (which was the majority of it, really) couldn't help finding fascination with the way it all worked.

"Look at you, holding a spider," Y/N said, sounding satisfied and conclusive, like a TV character delivering her last line at the end of a movie. "Shall I get the window for you? Although I must warn you, it's said that house spiders can't survive outside. If you put it out there it might die; I can't remember if it was a myth or not." She'd said it with an air of indifference, assuming Sherlock would be in more than a hurry to do whatever it takes to rid his home of the intruder that has caused him so much distress, so she was slightly taken aback to see his horrified expression.

"Wait, really?"

Y/N nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, I'm not letting her die." He'd stood a little straighter, like a defiant parent refusing to let his child go on a school trip to somewhere he deemed unsafe.

Raising her eyebrows in mock scrutiny at his rapid change of heart: "It's a her now?"

Sherlock gave a shrug; or as close to a shrug as he could get without shaking the spider up too much. "That's what you said she is, isn't she?"

Y/N couldn't help noticing, with a rush of fondness, how gentle he was being with what had been an invader but was now being treated like a stray dog that had somehow wandered into the apartment. Even before, when Sherlock been scared out of his mind, he still hadn't asked Y/N to kill the spider. 

"Yeah, I think she's a she. We should ask Mrs Hudson, she's the one---" a light clicked on behind her eyes, "That's what we'll do with her. We'll ask Mrs Hudson if we can use her spider cupboard."

🕷🕷🕷

The next morning, Y/N gravitated, sleepy-eyed, to the kitchen in search of sustenance, expecting to find Sherlock at the table already. He used to remain in bed until ungodly hours, but in recent months it had become his habit to join Y/N for breakfast. Maybe because he enjoyed her company. Maybe because the kitchen is a hub of interest and he's scared of missing out. Maybe because Y/N sometimes offered to make him eggs just the way he liked them. She wasn't sure.

She wasn't even entirely sure why she wanted to make him eggs in the first place; couldn't he do it himself? But his eyes would go all glowy and his handsome mouth would widen into a grin every time Y/N set the plate down before him, which she had grown a considerable affinity for.

On this particular day, though, he was absent.

Y/N needed her fix of Sherlock's glowy eyes and happy smile, so she let her bare feet carry her to his bedroom door and raised her hand to give it a little knock.

No one answered. Sometimes she has to fetch him, wake him from sleep, and he'll give her a lopsided grin and a 'good morning' thick with the last remnants of a dream, then stumble after her to the kitchen. It is because of this that Y/N felt so easy in pushing the door open and approaching the bed.

That easiness faltered when she found the bed empty. Not faltered as in its momentum came to an abrupt halt, but rather it gained a new kind of energy, her mind now filled with curiosity. Sherlock got up early for roughly four things: to check on a science experiment, Christmas, his birthday, and crime (both ones he has and hasn't committed himself).

When Y/N had walked the entire apartment and still failed to locate her friend, she decided to widen the search so that the area she was scouring was to encompass the entire building. This included Mrs Hudson's flat, and 221C in the basement (although Y/N had no idea why anyone would be down there of their own free will).

Much to Y/N's relief, the hunt ended long before the damp bowels of the building had to be penetrated.

"Have you seen Sherlock?" Y/N asked Mrs Hudson when she answered the door. It wasn't early, but it wasn't late either, so Y/N didn't know whether to apologise for the intrusion or not.

If she had apologised it probably would have merely been waved off with one of Mrs Hudson's claw-like hands; she was already dressed and probably had been for some time; the apron tied about her waist freckled with miniature pale fireworks of flour. She'd been baking again. 

In her usual motherly fashion, Mrs Hudson ushered Y/N into her squat little flat as if a blizzard was raging in the hallway, her fluttering and genial mannerisms easing nerves Y/N didn't even know were frayed. She led Y/N to the kitchenette as if it was her first time visiting, apologising for the mess that wasn't even there. That seems to happen when your age tumbles over the sixty-year-mark; you start hallucinating clutter and awakening before the birds with an innate need to bake.

"He came to see how Mycroft is doing," Mrs Hudson explained.

With confusion: "Mycroft is here?"

"No, Mycroft the spider. You know, that one you brought yesterday."

They _had_ ended up donating the spider to Mrs Hudon's rapidly growing collection. The idea of disposing of the spider by humanely and discreetly sealing it away in a cupboard had seemed to ease Sherlock's mind and conscience considerably because his face had broken out into a grateful smile. He'd followed Y/N close at her heels, which made her a little uneasy, fear that he'd seize the opportunity for revenge whilst her back was turned nibbling at the corner of her mind. She felt his arm brush hers at one point and almost left her own skin, thinking for a horrible second that he had let the spider loose on her---or something. 

But he hadn't. 

Sherlock had watched attentively as Mrs Hudson accepted his strange gift, then offered him tea.

When Y/N had left them, craving sleep and the warm embrace of her duvet, Mrs Hudson was telling Sherlock about how 'the ogre-faced spider spins a web between its front legs and casts it over its prey'.

He'd looked fascinated.

The spider cupboard is located in Mrs Hudson's sitting room and that is where Y/N found Sherlock, a plate of butter-slick toast balanced on one of his crossed legs. He tipped his head back to smile up at Y/N and she tried to stop the corners of her own lips pulling into a smirk.

"You called the spider Mycroft? I told you it was a female."

Sherlock shrugged, turning back to the cupboard, its door open wide, the whole thing looking like a dark, square little mouth. The mouth was gummy and toothless, completely empty besides fluffy webs, dust clinging to the wispy tendrils like gritty ice crystals.

Y/N felt a shiver curl its way around the base of her spine as her eyes adjusted more to the lack of light and several looming shapes materialised. More than several, now that she thought about it; like those optical illusions, the longer Y/N stared at the spider cupboard the more the name suited it.

She took a seat next to Sherlock who had been watching the scene as if it was an episode of his favourite TV show. 

"Yeah, but it was big. And invading my space, so it just seemed to suit."

This made Y/N giggle which in turn made Sherlock glow.

"Are you not scared of them anymore?" Y/N asked, realising that, with such so many concentrated in one small space, that _she_ might be.

Another shrug. "They're okay if they don't go on me. Mrs Hudson has been telling me about them. They're sort of interesting to watch. Like fish, but they don't move nearly as much."

It was then that Y/N caught sight of a slender notepad by Sherlock's right foot. His handwriting---much like one of the spiders had been dipped in ink and meandered drunkenly over the paper---filled the first half of the top page.

"What's that for?"

"I've been documenting them."

"Did you name them all?"

"No, I left eleven for you to name. There was a twelfth but the numbers decreased when Cindy ate Harris."


End file.
